Histories of Art, Race and Empire: 1492-1865

Teaching Strategies

Along with my considerations regarding the theory of language acquisition and art history content, I knew I wanted to create something that utilized the basic methodologies of creating a communicative environment where students felt comfortable making errors and taking risks in the L2. While many programs rely heavily on the use of translation and memorization to convey the meaning of vocabulary and principles of grammar and structure of the target language, I consider both to be tools which can often become a crutch if overused. If students never learn to negotiate meaning in the second language, they will have a difficult time acquiring enough language to fluently express themselves with any level of comprehensibility. Thus, all of the strategies listed below are designed to allow access to content presented in French, with some L1 support where appropriate.

Visual Supports

The discussion texts incorporated in the unit will appear in English and include a strategy vital to any world language classroom: visual support. While identifying colors and writing in simple sentences, by Common Core Standards, are not considered middle school level objectives, the students will have the opportunity for exposure to language in this unit in the form of the titles of various works of art as well as other short primary source texts about the artist themselves. As previously mentioned, Krashen (1981) states that students require comprehensible input in order to increase their language proficiency. This means that information presented in a lesson needs to be i + 1, or just slightly above their ability to comprehend at their present proficiency level. Thus, the texts provided will ultimately accessible through the use of accompanying visual aids, video clips, audio, etc. The images will be hand-selected by the teacher using Google to support student comprehension of the main ideas of any French language texts text at various points.

Lingt

Hockly & Dudeney (2007) propose three questions to evaluate whether the use of technology is effective for vocabulary instruction with second language learners: “Are we increasing their motivation and engagement?”, “Are we allowing them to practise and produce language in useful ways in class?” and lastly, “Are we giving them the opportunity to take their language learning out of the classroom and have extra exposure to [the target language]?” My content will meet all three of these criteria by providing students with a way to interact meaningfully with language in a way that closely mirrors the ways in which they use it in real life through the use of Lingt²⁰. Lingt is a speaking practice platform that allows students to make short recordings of themselves speaking, which are then posted to a forum within the application that only the students and myself can access. This tool is perfect for learners of French because it has a very simple and user-friendly interface for recording, and includes a feature that allows the teacher to post specific prompts, images, or videos for the students to respond to. Completed responses and privatized. This lowers the affective filter by keeping students’ expressions to short bursts, as well as removing the anxiety of asking students to present their ideas in the traditional whole group presentation.

Total Physical Response

Total Physical Response (TPR) is a pedagogical methodology developed by Asher (1969). This strategy teaches new vocabulary by requiring students to respond physically with gestures, props, etc. to input that they hear in the second language. Asher purports that students are more likely to process and internalize language when they involve a simultaneous response from the central nervous system. Total Physical Response can be as simple as one gesture to indicate the meaning of a verb, or a whole series of commands students must follow to pantomime the actions of characters in a text. 

Authentic Listening

The development of strong listening comprehension skills is crucial to the success of L2 learners. As students spend nearly double the amount of time listening as they do speaking and three times as much time as they do reading or writing, their ability to understand a non-sympathetic native speaker of French determines their success at acquiring proficiency in the target language as much as their ability to produce it. Self-paced listening to authentic source materials is an ideal means of strengthening listening skills. Authentic materials are those featuring native or native-like speakers of the target language created for real-world purposes. For example, a podcast, a Youtube video, an interview on a talk show, etc. By exposing students to authentic listening tasks with the proper scaffolding, we can slowly improve their understanding.  

A wonderful tool to use for this purpose is a program called Edpuzzle²¹, which allows teachers to assign listening content that includes questions and notes inserted at various points to support comprehension. Teachers can upload a Youtube video, screencast of their own creation, or copy of an assignment made by another teacher on the site. From there the video can be cropped to include only relevant parts, as well as modified to include closed captioning, multiple choice or open-ended questions of the teacher’s design, or inserted notes to clarify content. Videos that include questions can be automatically or self-graded to measure student comprehension. Students can also re-watch (but not skip) sections of the assigned video to review before answering a question. 

Vocabulary Journal

Following the need for meaningful vocabulary use in the second language classroom as detailed above, students will keep a vocabulary journal²² for the words in this unit. Although old-fashioned compared to today’s more “flashy” methods of teaching vocabulary, I have personally found that having students write their own vocabulary list is more effective in ensuring student retention in my practice; The vocabulary journal serves as an anchor for students to reference as they continue to work with the vocabulary in different contexts throughout the unit. Research shows that students need at least 17 different exposures to a new word in order to retain it; by having a vocabulary journal at their disposal at all times, students can regulate their own interactions with the terms.